Charleston will forever hold huge significance to this black American, for it was where he arrived after months of grueling travel in a despicable vessel having watched many relatives, friends and acquaintances held in close quarters with him die and having to be the one to throw their corpses overboard.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Imagine the relief when he finally emerged from the stinky sticky and humid hull to the fresh but still humid air of Sullivan’s Island. Scantily dressed they were marched on to a holding lodge on the southern tip of the Island to be quarantined for 30 days with 200 others. Then straightened out and prepared for auction. This night was different, he had a cleaner floor to sleep on and relatively fresh food to eat after months.
On the 30th day, he wakes up rested and is treated to a breakfast of corn before being herded with the rest across the harbor and up Chalmers street to the slave mart for auction. Then back aboard a boat across the Ashley and Cooper rivers to the plantations that would become their homes.
After being branded he is given a tool and put to work from sunrise to sundown, talk of a long day. At the end of his day, he sits pensively in his abode considering his predicament before drifting into sleep due to the sheer fatigue.
Photo by Andrew Martin
He often wakes up suddenly, heart racing and disoriented to find that his wife isnt by his side. He rushes to the right where the door to his hut used to be, only to run into a wall that reminds him of his situation. Trapped, angry and bitter he refuses to capitulate to the new status quo but spends whats left of his energy everyday nurturing and keeping his reality alive within him, maybe one day he will be able to go back to the village of his birth look at the smile on his daughters face and feel the warmth of his wifes body, maybe just maybe someday.
Year after year, ‘someday’ never comes, just more arrivals. He takes a liking to the new young girl who speaks a different language, nevertheless they will go on to share each other’s warmth and have children. Children born into slavery, one day he hopes he may perhaps introduce his new family to the old one and they will be one big happy polygamous family.
That day too never came. When the helminthiasis set in, his overworked and ravaged body was no match for it. Soon his widow was wailing with her lifes uncertainty now compounded, she mourned for two women. He died and was buried in an unmarked grave just dirt, today we walk over his burial place on our way to pay homage to the lavish graves and opulent monuments built to celebrate his masters. He may be dead, forgotten and trampled upon but his seed lives on. His masters seed too. Although divided by oceans and hindered by prejudice, one day I believe we will all reconcile.!